[FIRST DRAFT – NOT FOR QUOTATION OR CIRCULATION]

Diego Maiorano

Working Paper

The State Against Itself

Introduction

One of the key finding of the CIVICUS’s Global Survey of the State of Civil Society is that the political context is immensely important in determining the state of the civil society in any given country. In particular, it is the “attitudes of the government”[1] that crucially determines the role and the impact that civic action can have. Further, despite the difficulties – perhaps the impossibility – in reaching a consensual definition of “civil society”, most of the stakeholders interviewed within the CIVICUS project, agreed that civil society is an eminently political phenomenon[2].

Yet, political dynamics are seldom taken into account when analysing one of the key domains of civil society’s action, namely development policies.This paper will set out a research framework for an attempt to remedy to this lack of attention to political dynamics in the analysis of state-civil society relations and to the role that the latter can play in developing policies.

From what we have just said, it should be already clear that a somewhat narrow definition of “civil society” is what we will focus on. In fact, our attention will be dedicated to what is often considered the “core” of civil society in developing countries (as it is in India, which will be our focus here), namely Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) whose mission is the betterment of the living conditions of the poor.Therefore, not only will a whole range of other types of associations - business circles, caste associations, trade unions, et cetera[3] – not considered; but the differences between movements, community-based organisations, people’s organisations, NGOs, et cetera will not be taken into account not because they are ignored, but simply because,for our purposes, such differences are not very relevant, as the following discussion should make clear. Besides, at least as far as the Indian case is concerned, most of these differences “reflected rhetorical positioning more than substantive differences”.[4]

The research will be conducted on the basis of two working hypothesis. The first one is that civil society in India – or at least in some parts of India –is gradually merging with,and becoming an integral part of the state. The second one is that such a merging is mainly due to the state’s willingness to ally with civil society against another part of the state itself. These two hypothesis appears to be true at the national level, but also at the state level of India’s federal system.

The research will seek to test these two hypothesis by analysing the relation between the state government and the CSOs in the state of Andhra Pradesh. More specifically, our focus will be on the relations surrounding the implementation of India’s largest anti-poverty programme, i.e. the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA). This is a particularly interesting case, as Andhra Pradesh is almost unanimously seen as a leading example in implementing the NREGA, not least because of its innovative “attitudes” towards CSOs.

The paper is organised as follows. This first section introduces the national political context and the alliance of the state with the civil society at the national level. Section two narrows the focus on Andhra Pradesh. Section three concludes and poses some research questions.

1. The United Progressive Alliance and the National Advisory Council

In 2004, the Congress Party and its allies won the Indian general elections. No one had predicted the result. The odds were strongly in favour of the incumbent National Democratic Alliance (NDA), which had brought the country on a path of vigorous economic growth and that was so confident that had based its electoral campaign on the claim that India was “shining”,[5] indeed a very courageous claim in a country where about 50 per cent of the population is poor[6].In fact, voters did not agree with such a claim and the Congress party under the leadership of Sonia Gandhi came back to power. Hectic negotiations held shortly after the elections brought to the establishment of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA)government and to the communist parties (the so-called Left Front) to lend external support to the government. The whole political arrangement was based on the so-called Common Minimum Programme (CMP), whose first policy commitment was the implementation – within 100 days – of an Employment Guarantee Act, as promised in the Congress’s election manifesto[7]. The UPA had to honour its commitment, also because the Left Front made it a conditio sine qua no for its support to the government.

A key aspect of the negotiation between the UPA and the Left Front was the creation of a committee, the National Advisory Council (NAC), that would supervise the implementation of the CMP. The NAC was composed by representatives of the civil society – mostly social activists and academics – along with some retired bureaucrats, and was chaired by Congress’s president and UPA’s chairperson Sonia Gandhi[8]. The NAC became Sonia Gandhi’s think tank for progressive social policies. Its components designed a series of anti-poverty policies (including the NREGA) that were later passed by the Indian parliamentand that were unprecedented in India’s history, not only because of the amount of resources invested – between 2004 and 2008 more than 57 billion dollars were spent in anti-poverty programmes[9] – but also because a serious effort was made to make them work significantly better than in the past.

However, the legislative process was far from being smooth. A tension arose between the government and the NAC – both of which were to a significant extent a Sonia Gandhi’s creations[10].Such a tension was most evident with the formulation of the NREGA. The NAC wrote a very strong bill. This was introduced in the Ministry of Rural Development, which diluted the bill to a significant extent before sending it to the Lok Sabha.[11] Here something very unusual happened. The Standing Committee of the Parliament, in the wake of strong pressures from the NAC members and other informally-affiliated civil society representatives, reintroduced most of the provisions originally envisaged.[12] Eventually, the Lok Sabha passed the NREGA unanimously in August 2005.

This episode is an instance of a larger trend that is profoundly shaping state-society relations in India. On the one hand, part of the civil society is merging with, and receiving strong support from part of the state, and it is assuming official roles in the policy-making and in the implementation of development programmes; on the other hand, that very part of the civil society is assuming a very conflictual and militant position against another part of the state, which is reluctant to implement progressive – and relatively expensive – social policies.

This situation – by which the state allies with the civil society against another branch of the state – is replicatedat the state level in India’s federal system, at least in certain cases. Perhaps the domain in which such an alliance is most evident is the promotion of transparency and accountability and the fight against corruption, which affected virtually every single anti-poverty programme in the past.

In order to ground the state’s alliance with CSOs on concrete policy measurers, the central government[13] passed the Right to Information Act (RTI) in 2005. This gives the right to every Indian citizen to get access to government documents within 30 days from the request and envisages stiff penalties for officials who refuse to provide the requested documentation. The RTI has been utilised extensively by CSOs operating at the village level for a proper implementation of the NREGA[14] and resulted in the exposure of numberless episode of theft, malpractice, and corruption by local level state officials and politicians.

Given the immense distance that separates the central government and local level politics and administration, the alliance with CSOs against local state structures is surprising only to a certain extent. However, it is more surprising when such an alliance is replicated at the state level.[15]Here local level officials (at the district, sub-district, and local levels) and politicians have traditionally been part of the patronage structure of senior political leaders and of Members of the Legislative Assembly[16] (MLAs).[17] Nevertheless, what we are seeing in at least some of the Indian states, is an alliance between CSOs and the state government against lower level state structures, in an attempt to curb corruption and make development programmes work the way they are supposed to.

This paper will focus on one state that, evidence suggests, has undertaken such a path.

2. Andhra Pradesh

2.1 Political Background

Andhra Pradesh’s politics is structured around a bipolar party system since 1983. In January that year N. T. Rama Rao (popularly known as NTR) won the state assembly elections with his newly formed Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and put an end to the last bastion[18] of the “Congress system”[19] in India. Since that moment the TDP and the Congress alternated in power[20].

Along with law and order[21], and the debate over the possible bifurcation of the state[22], development policies were the main issue of the 2004 electoral campaign.[23]The incumbent chief minister[24]Chandrababu Naidu, who had pursued an aggressive market-oriented strategy since his coming to power in 1995, claimed he had brought Andhra Pradesh to the forefront of India’s growth story.[25] The Congress party and its leader Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy (popularly known as YSR) put the emphasis on how the agricultural sector had severely suffered from Naidu’s policies as the abysmally high number of suicides among farmers showed. The Congress also promised to introduce comprehensive welfare programmes,[26] including investments in irrigation, subsidized interest rates for women’s Self Help Groups (SHGs), land distribution to Scheduled Classes,[27] legalised land rights for Scheduled Tribes.[28]

Eventually, the Congress party won the state elections and came back to power after 10 years in opposition. YSR became the chief minister.In fact, YSR kept his promise to introduce a number of welfare schemes. Manyof these initiatives can be called “post-clientelistic”[29]policies. These kind of initiatives cover a relative wide array of government programmes and have become a key feature of India’s political system in recent years. Many politicians, especially at the state level, have realised that clientelism – the main political tool during the heyday of the “Congress system” – is just not enough to maintain electoral support and remain in power. In fact, between 1980 and 2008 morethan 75 per cent of the elections in India resulted in the ruling party being defeated.For this reasons many chief ministers decided to adopt a set of “post-clientelist” initiatives to supplement their more “traditional” clientelist ways of winning support. The key feature of post-clientelist policies is that these are “protected” from powerful patronage network bosses. Usually (even if not always), this means that such programmes work significantly better than other initiatives, they ensure greater participation, and less political interference.[30]

Politicians can protect development policies in three ways: first, by designing policies which contain strong transparency and accountability measurers. This is what has happened in at the national level since 2004. Most development policies have been carefully designed, with crucial inputs from committed civil society actors within the NAC. The NREGA is the most prominent example. Second, by making it clear to bureaucrats and powerful politicians that thefts from the programme will not be tolerated and that those willing to amass illicit funds from the state should focus on other initiatives. This seems to be the case in Andhra Pradesh, where the Rural Development Ministry ceased – to a significant extent – to be a “wet ministry”, i.e. a source of money and patronage for political leaders controlling it. Politicians willing to make money now concentrate on land policy, or on mining concessions, as these are by far the largest sources of illicit funds. (Given the extension of the phenomenon it is clear that the government is closing both eyes on such practices, if it is not actively participating in such activities). Third, the state government can seek the collaboration of CSOsand make them actors in the policy process, and in the implementation and surveillance of development programmes. Again, this is what it seems to be happening in Andhra Pradesh and it constitutes a major focus of this paper.

2.2 State-Civil Society Relations in Andhra Pradesh

It is perhaps useful to recall briefly what the relation between civil society and the government of Andhra Pradesh was like before the advent of the Congress government in 2004. Before the 1980s, the one-party-dominant party system and the firm belief in state-led development in government circles at all levels, had limited the willingness of the state government to engage in a partnership with CSOs.

The crumbling of the state-led development model both in India and among most international donors and institutions led, on the one hand, to the proliferation of CSOs engaged in development programmes and, on the other hand, to the need by the state government to establish some form of relation with them. However, the advent of Chandrababu Naidu at the helm of Andhra Pradesh’s government in 1995 coincided with the establishment of what was probably India’s worst environment for CSOs.[31]

Naidu’s government was much centralised and the chief minister was extremely awareof any alternative power centre, as CSOs potentially were. Thus, his government’s relations with CSOs were based on the systematic exclusion and isolation of independent CSOs from whatsoever role in the design or implementation of development policies. Furthermore, in order to contrast even the limited influence such organisation could exercise at the local level, Naidu established and actively promoted a number of government-organised non-governmental organisations (GONGOs), which were headed by government officials and that were in charge of implementing development policies. Perhaps the best example of such organisations is the Society for the Elimination of Rural Poverty (SERP), which was (and still is) in charge of training members of the thousands of women’s Self Help Groups (SHGs) which mushroomed during Naidu’s regime.[32] In fact, GONGOs virtually eliminated the need for the state government to partner with other (and independent) CSOs[33].

The Congress governmentthat came to power in 2004 changed to a certain extent its relation with CSOs. Generally, there is today far more participation of CSOs in both the policy-making and in the implementation of development schemes, thus replicating in the state a similar development occurring at the national level.

The collaboration between the state government and CSOs is now based on three pillars. The first one is the Government-NGOs Coordination Committee (GO-NGO). The second one is the Andhra Pradesh-NGO Alliance (APNA). The third is the Society for Social Audit, Accountability and Transparency (SSAAT)[34].

The GO-NGO is the institutional platform for the dialogue between the state government and CSOs. According to the GO-NGO’s website[35] the task of the committee is “to serve as a platform for experience sharing and to function as a think tank for a meaningful and continuous dialogue, thematic discussions, sharing information and to devise innovative strategies to enhance effectiveness of on-going programmes” and “to review existing policy regimes”.

How and to what extent this platform actually constitutes an effective channel for CSOs to influence the design and implementation of development programmes is open to speculation. This research will try to offer a contribution on this issue. However, it should be noted that the GO-NGO Committee is chaired by the Chief Minister and among its members there is the Minister for Rural Development (Vice-Chair), a retired civil servant (Executive Vice-Chairperson), and nine senior civil servants. CSOs are represented by six members, who are appointed by the government for a period of two years. Therefore the hypothesis that the GO-NGO coordination committee does not in fact function as an open arena of confrontation between CSOs and the state government, but rather as a top-down system of control over CSOs appears plausible. This will be verified.

The Andhra Pradesh NGO Alliance was formed in 2010, following meetings within the just mentioned GO-NGO collaboration (according to the government).[36] The aim of the APNA is to structure the work of CSOs within the NREGA. Interested organisations that respect certain criteria can apply to join the alliance. To date, about 350 CSOs are part of the APNA. These perform four main tasks. First, they form, strengthen, and train Fixed Labour Groups (FLGs), namely small groups of NREGA workers at the village level (often formed on caste lines) that work together and deal with the administration as a group. Second, they are observers during social audits performed by the SSAAT (more on this below). Third, they undertake fact finding missions, if so instructed by the Commissioner for Rural Development. Fourth, they participate in the monthly meetings with the state’s administration at the mandal,[37] district, and state level.